Blood and Roses
by happilyinsane13
Summary: Katniss and Peeta have lived happily for their children for years. But their minds threaten to deteriorate when they find them missing and the message on the TV."Welcome to the 76th Annual Hunger Games! Let the odds be ever in your favor!"
1. Blood and Bread

They were happy. Life had never been sweeter for Katniss Mellark, Peeta, their two children, and even Haymitch. The fear that had overwhelmed Katniss when she had become pregnant the first, even the second time had long passed. She had been lulled into a place of dandelions spreading their seeds in a warm breeze.

That hope now swelled within her chest everyday. An unbearable hope that was made bearable by the fact that there was now a growing Panem that was peaceful. Her children were beautiful and safe, Peeta was always by her side, and Haymitch was still a drunk but one that would put down his bottle of liquor when a little girl and boy would run into his yard to play. She had even been trying to repair her relationship with her mother, however grudgingly at first. Yet, with Peeta and Delly's encouragement, she was right on track.

Years passed this way. There were some nights full of nightmares, and days where Peeta had to grip a hard object in his hand, hold onto something steady. But at last, their biggest fear had been wiped clear from their conscious. There were no Hunger Games. That now only existed in the pages of history books and the memories of the ever-aging.

It only made it more unbearable when her children were gone.

* * *

><p>Briar Mellark awoke in a dark room. It felt slightly cold, and as he blinked to adjust his eyes he could tell the room was bare straight in front of him. All that occupied the room in his line of vision was a small television set. As he came to his senses, his gleaming Seam grey eyes widened in a panic. Where was his sister?<p>

"Crescent!" he shouted, feeling that she was not near him, was not next to him like she should be. "Crescent! Can you hear me?"

"Briar?"

Briar scrambled to the right side of the room, pressing his ear against the very thin concrete wall.

"Crescent, are you okay? Where are you? What can you see?"

It took a few moments for her to respond, dazed from her time in oblivion.

"A dark room," she replies. "There's…there's nothing but a TV…" Her voice is growing panicky. Briar hears the slow beginning of what will soon be erratic breathing a dry heaves. He has to calm her down.

"Crescent, listen to me, I'm right here. It's okay, it's okay, I promise. Calm down. Take deep breaths, like dad tells you to do."

He could hear a pause as she closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. Briar closed his eyes and imagined her smooth face, that olive complexion flushing as she breathed. Her dark hair would fall up and down as she inhaled and exhaled, and her crystal clear blue eyes, like the beautiful sky above their home and the beautiful woods, would focus.

Briar may have been the younger sibling at sixteen years old while his older sister had just turned eighteen, but no matter how much she looked like their mother, she was the perfect blend of their father and the aunt they never knew. Sometimes when his mother took him out to hunt, just the two of them, she would say to him,

"I'm glad I didn't name her Primrose. She may not look like her, but the way your sister acts sometimes… I'd be a mess."

He knew his mother didn't mean it in a negative way, but sometimes he couldn't help but feel sorry for Crescent. She would always be the one his mother and father felt they had to protect. He knew he felt the same.

After a few minutes Crescent spoke again, her voice more steady.

"Briar, what happened? Do you remember anything?"

"We… we had just come back from Grandpa Haymitch's house. We had stayed with him because Mom and Dad had gone to District 4 to visit Grandma, and Aunt Annie and Kai…"

His squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember.

"Yes," Crescent said, encouraging. "Yes, and we helped Grandpa Haymitch wash up after he drank, put him to bed… We… We went home because it was the last night anyway, and we thought we could leave him alone,"

"And you suddenly wanted to make cheese buns!" Briar teased, the memory was warm and pleasant.

She giggled but their mirth quickly died when they recalled where we were. It was silent for a few more moments.

"Yes, I wanted to make them for Grandpa Haymitch when he woke up," she said softly.

"The old drunk," he scoffed, but his voice was hollow.

The memory suddenly came to Briar though, with searing clarity. They had been caught of guard. Crescent had been pulling the buns out of the oven, Briar looking over her shoulder to laugh and tease her when suddenly, he had been seized from behind. Crescent barely had time to scream when the stranger brought Briar's head against the polished wood of the kitchen counter. Briar remembered Crescent screaming as someone else, with a face he could not recall, grab his sister and put a cloth over her face. She was out after a few whimpers.

He had realized it was chloroform in the few seconds it took to fade into nothingness when the cloth descended over his nose.

She seemed to come to the same realization, because she was beginning to dry heave again. Briar placed his hand against where his head had been smashed. There was a scab, and it was tender but it surprisingly did not throb like he expected. He focused on the wall where his sister was. He tried to block out her heaving so he could better concentrate on calming her down again.

"Crescent, don't panic on me now," he said. "Please, I need you as my older sister to help me on this."

Her breathing slowed again. That always did it. Reminding her that she was the first born, the one that had a responsibility to keep her younger brother safe. It was something she had felt a need to do since they were young, but as they grew older it was Briar who had taken up the sheltering role.

That never stopped Crescent from wanting to be the older sister she felt she should be though.

"Okay," she sighed. "I'm sorry, it's just… I can't figure out why…"

Before she could finish though, the TV in the corner of Briar's room lit up. He jumped in surprise, knocking his head against the wall. Crescent squeaked on her end. He assumed her TV had turned on too. At first there was nothing but static, but them a face appeared before their very eyes.

"Welcome, tributes of Panem! Citizens, its an exciting time of year!"

It was a woman speaking. Her bleached blonde hair, almost white, was short and curled into tight ringlets against her head. Her lips were plump, almost puffy, and her eyes were the sharpest, coldest, cobalt eyes. They were like that of a deranged snake's. A white rose was pinned to what Briar presumed was a red dress.

"I'm Clytemnestra Snow, and Welcome to the 76th Annual Hunger Games! It has been a long time coming, I'm afraid, so, let the odds be _ever_ in your favor!"

Briar heard Crescent scream.

* * *

><p>Katniss was screaming. She had come home, prepared to have her teenagers run into her arms, kiss her, ask about District 4 and gossip about Haymitch's drinking habits. Yet when Peeta and her had walked into the kitchen all they had found was an open oven, a pan and cheese buns scattered and ruined on the floor, and blood smeared all over the edge of the counter.<p>

Peeta was holding her desperately trying to calm her down. Soothing her as best he could, yet he was frazzled enough as it was. His children, his precious son and daughter were gone, with signs of a brutal struggle.

This just added something else for them to have nightmares about.

"Katniss you need to calm down. Look, you can do this. We will do this, calm down. This is not the time to freak out!"

Katniss went from terrified to angry in a second.

"What are we supposed to do Peeta?" she yelled, throwing herself out of his arms. "They're gone, and there's blood, what are we… where are they?"

Peeta took hold of her arms and held them tightly in his strong, bakers hands.

_No_, Katniss thought. They weren't those hands. They were the hands of a fighter, someone she had thought had taken a deserved, permanent vacation long ago. But more than that they were the hands of her husband, and father to her children.

"Lets concentrate," Peeta said, trying to keep his voice even and steady. "Look at the blood, what do you see?"

Katniss didn't want to look at the blood, but one look into Peeta's eyes and she knew she had to. She took in a deep breath and looked, her hunter's eyes scanning the scene.

There was blood, yes, but on closer inspection it was not enough blood to bleed out completely. There were not any blood marks on the floor to, so it was probably a superficial head wound. A concussion was possible though. The blood mark was on the other side of the tray, leaving her to believe it was Briar who had been hit. Briar wasn't one for baking, preferring his much more skilled sister to do the work while he watched. So she was holding the tray when she was taken by surprise.

The bread, having been thrown about, indicates a struggle. Nothing outside of the kitchen is disturbed though, which means…

"They must have been knocked unconscious," she let out shakily. "Possibly drugged. I think Briar… that he was the one that was hit."

Peeta's face was noticeably paler, but he nodded. Better Briar then Crescent. He could withstand the force of it. He was not so sure about Crescent though. Immediately he was repelled by the thought. Choosing on child to be hurt over the other… It was a sick, twisted feeling he had not felt in a long time.

They ran over to Haymitch's house in the Victor's Circle, crashing the door open without any notice. As they suspected, he was already at the table, drinking from his bottle of white liquor. He popped his head up.

"Did you have to go breaking the damn door down?" he snapped. He looked around them, his face turning into a frown. "Where are the-"

"That's what we'd like to know," Katniss growled, grabbing his bottle and flinging it against the wall where it shattered into pieces, alcohol flying everywhere.

Haymitch stood up, swearing but Katniss pinned him against the wall, stronger than him now as he had aged.

"Katniss, stop!" Peeta yelled, but Katniss was too far gone.

"You were supposed to be watching them!" she screamed. "I trusted you, you blasted drunk! I would think you'd take care of your own… your own grandkids…" she faltered and suddenly, the dam broke.

Of all the things in this world that could make Katniss cry, she only knew three things for sure.

In those private moments she had with Peeta, those rare days where the beauty of how lucky she was struck her with such strength that she cried. Her tears would flow, Peeta would hold her, and she would swear to love him so much better because he had loved her so much more.

When her children had been born.

When her children had been taken.

Her Crescent, who looked exactly like her until you saw her beautiful eyes, Peeta's eyes. As she grew how her kindness was as if she was Peeta and Prim rolled into one gorgeous creature, full of hope, dandelions, and fresh baked bread. Her strong Briar, the boy that looked everything like his father, from the pale sking to the blonde hair. Yet his eyes were from the Seam, and his passion for the woods and the hunt made her identify with him on a level she had not felt since her old hunting days with Gale. Yet it was so much more because he was her son.

Peeta extracted her hands from Haymitch's collar, enveloping her in her embrace. Haymoitch just stood there, thunderstruck, for once at a loss for a sarcastic comment. He had none to give, because they were gone. Two little brats that had become a regular prescence in his world had disappeared.

Peeta could see a mixture of fear and guilt enter Haymitch's eyes and quickly he explained everything they had seen and deduced.

"We need… we need to call someone," Haymitch said. "We can't just rely on us."

"Gale!" Katniss exclaimed, lifting her head from Peeta's shirt. "He has a big position in District 2! We can ask for his help!"

"It might not come to that," Peeta said. "They might be nearby. Besidesm I don't think Gale… well, I don't know if he'd be happy…"

He let that hang in the air. Although Katniss and Gale still held a tentative friendship, it was a fragile one. They rarely spoke but every few months, if not just to be updated on their family life.

There was a buzz and a flicker, and the trio turned to peer into the living room. Beyond the absolute mess that Haymitch made, there sat a TV on a mahogany shelf. It flickered and buzzed until a woman with tight curls, puffy lips, and a white rose pinned to her red dress filled up the screen.

"Welcome, tributes of Panem! Citizens, its an exciting time of year!"

Her voice was too cheery, too ecstatic for these words. The three adults looked at the screen in utter horror.

"No," Peeta breathed. Haymitch and Katniss were shocked into silence.

"I'm Clytemnestra Snow, and Welcome to the 76th Annual Hunger Games! It has been a long time coming, I'm afraid, so, let the odds be _ever_ in your favor!"

Flashing across the screen were images made to look to grand, of Hunger Games from the past. As if being sped up, footage from the first to the very last flew by the screen. Katniss watched as she saw everything. Mags own victory in one of the early Hunger Games. Enobaria ripping out another player's throat. Annie losing her mind and swimming to victory, Finnick's triumph with his trident at age 14. Haymitch holding Maysilee's hand as she died. Katniss holding Rue, her and Peeta in the Cave, later with the berries, those damn blessed berries. The Quarter Quell… all of it flashed by in a matter of three minutes but reliving those memories was as if all her nightmares had compounded before her eyes.

She did not notice the phone ringing on Haymitch's wall, and Peeta stumbling to answer it.

"Hello? What? How did you know we were here? Calm down, calm down! No… Don't, don't panic, what?"

A hideous pause.

"Crescent and Briar are gone."

Another pause.

"Keep watching the broadcast, I'll call you back."

Peeta hung up and wandered over to his wife and Haymitch as the gory, terrifying reel of clips ended.

"Annie's son, Kai, is missing."

Katniss clamped a hand over mouth.

Haymitch just kept staring at the television screen as that woman, that woman that Katniss could just imagine smelling of faux roses and blood said,

"Now, lets watch the Reaping's of our brave tributes, shall we?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **_I'm afraid I'm very well aware on how behind I am for Letter's from my Son, but that's a story that doesn't completely have a plot. It's kind of like a bildungsroman that I just leisurely take my time on. _

_This story is different. Its an idea that has been spinning in my head for awhile now. I just hope it turns out well._


	2. Screaming

He heard screaming. It wouldn't stop, and as he sat in this… this cell, the reverberating voice hurt his head. Throughout half of the clips of the past Hunger Games, the girls voice kept going and going. It was growing annoying and painful, it sounded too familiar. It was as if his mother, screeching in her sleep, calling out for his father…

Yet this girls voice was different. The man could faintly hear the voice of a boy, muffled but audible. He was pleading for her to stop.

"Crescent…"

Crescent?

The thirty-three year old man rushed to the side of the room, where the voice was coming from.

"Crescent? Crescent is that you? Crescent!" he yelled, pounding against the concrete wall.

The horrible screech she was emitting started to die in her shock.

"Kai?"

Kai Odair sighed, leaning his head against the wall. He felt her move, saying something to someone. That voice, no matter how distant, was familiar too.

"Not Briar too…"

Crescent shuffled over to where Kai's head was beyond the wall.

"Kai? Oh Kai, not you too…"

"I'm afraid so, little bird." He said solemnly.

"This has to be some sort of cruel joke, it can't…"

"If anyone with the last name of Snow is involved," Kai bit out. "I'm afraid this is all too real."

He looked to the TV screen just in time to see his mother go crazy. Her district partner, the man who was decapitated in front of her, had died. His detached head rolled along the ground, and she broke. Tears welled up in his eyes and he turned again to the wall, where Crescent's warm voice was waiting for him.

"I promise Crescent," he said. "I won't let them hurt you or Briar. We'll find a way out. We'll escape!"

She nodded furiously, but then realizing he couldn't see her, she gave out a soft, "Yes."

Briar sat within his own room, watching the television. He already knew who was on the other side now. Kai Odair, the beautiful son of Finnick and Annie. Briar's hands shook, as he knew his mission to save his sister had just become so much harder. Crescent loved her Aunt Annie, the wonderful broken woman who only had her son to hold onto.

So if Annie's only son was in danger, no matter how capable he was of getting out of this alive, Crescent would try to protect him. Briar had already accepted that most likely, people would die. Whether from an escape attempt or an actual… He swallowed, Hunger Games, he knew people would die. He watched as his mother and father flickered across the screen in their first Hunger Games.

He already knew about the Hunger Games, they started teaching kids about it in history class when they turned 16. His sister might know more than he did, but he knew his parents had been an essential part of the games that accelerated them to propelling a rebel movement. The nightlock did it. His mother, when he asked one day after school, had stiffened.

"I only wanted us to live," she said. "I am happy with the result, but there are people I might not have lost if only one of us had one."

She never mentioned which of his parents would have, or should have, lived.

The Quarter Quell was passing by the screen now and he knew Kai would become riveted to the screen. He had never seen his father before, except in the portrait Briar's father had drawn in their book of the lost. Finnick was there, handsome and strong, saving Peeta, having to sacrifice Mags, saved from the poison, and crying over Annie's tortured voice…

He thought he heard a soft sob, and it did not sound like his sister.

* * *

><p>Katniss, Haymitch, and Peeta forced themselves to watch the "reaping's". It starts from District 1, and they are forced out of their own homes. They are not given any warning before they are taken. Unlike all the children before them who at least could have anticipated their name being drawn, these poor boys and girls were violently kidnapped.<p>

An eighteen year old from the factory in District 1 and a fifteen year old girl who elbows her attacker in the nose before being hit upside the head. In District 2 two twelve year olds are taken. One from a Sweet Shop as she was taking out the trash, and the boy from a house in the Victors Village. District 3 took a couple, who were working at afternoon jobs in the new factory for things called computers. District 4 made Katniss shy away from the screen. Kai, despite the fact that he was thirty-three years old, was taken by surprise in his sleep. It seemed though, to balance that out, they take a twenty-three year old woman who works as a nurse in the hospital Katniss mother works in.

It keeps going on and on with the boys and girls taken one by one. When it gets to District 12, Peeta lets out a muffled sob. Briar and Crescent are laughing over the bread they had just made when suddenly they're attacked. Haymitch, unnoticed, grabs a bottle of liquor and takes a couple of swigs. When the horror seems to be finally over, another shot is shown. Katniss and Peeta look bewildered, until the high-pitched voice of Clytemnestra comes on again.

"As an exciting twist, this year we have added two new tributes from the great Capitol itself!"

Haymitch nearly drops the bottle.

A boy of about seventeen is taken. Although Capitol fashion has become less extreme his hair is a striking forest green that stands out against his pale skin. He did not stand a chance when they jumped him. The thirteen year old girl is small with darker skin with a little purple bow in his frizzy brown hair. She, also, stood no chance against the man who took her from her own home.

"Capitol children?" Peeta breathed. "But that makes no sense."

"Who is Clytemnestra? Why is she doing this?" She looks like she's from the Capitol, she has the accent. Why would she do that?" Katniss wonders.

Haymitch makes a derisive snort.

"How quickly you forget one of the people you were intent on killing," he scoffs.

Katniss whips her head around, her long braid whipping against her face.

"What?"

"This is a revenge plot," Haymitch growls, sitting himself down in a chair and taking another drink from the liquor bottle. "Clytemnestra is one of the Capitol children you, we, wanted to put in another Hunger Games as revenge,"

Katniss and Peeta seem to painfully recall the memory, there eyes widening in terror.

"Have you finally put two and two together, sweetheart? She's President Snow's granddaughter."

* * *

><p>The trio in their separate cells watched the reaping from each district, analyzing the other tributes. While Crescent looked at the screen with pity and compassion, Briar and Kai had different ideas. If they could not find a way to escape, they would have no choice but to look at these tribute, these children, as prey. If they wanted to live long enough to see their home again, it was their only option.<p>

Briar could not help but feel disgusted with himself. How willing he was to think about becoming a murderer of innocent people when his life, when Crescent's life, was on the line. Was this how his mother thought? His father? If it was, he thought, no wonder they were plagued with nightmares.

Clytemnestra's face, increasingly becoming more ugly the longer her saw it, came on screen again.

"This will be such an exciting games this year!" she exclaimed. "Now, the tributes should get ready! They'll be assembled soon for their makeovers and, of course, meetings with their mentors!"

The screen went black.

There was a silence, and then Briar heard Crescent's voice ask,

"So this is really happening?"

The answer came when the door opened and a brawny man in a stark white uniform walked in to Briar's room.

"Yes." He said bitterly before he was hauled to his feet.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** _I hope this actually works this time. ff .net is being REALLY, and I mean REALLY stupid right now. It sayd it has uploaded my chapters but it won't lead people to the page. *sigh*_


	3. Swallowing Fear

"Mentors?" Peeta wondered. "How the hell are they going to get mentors if we can't even be with them!"

Katniss nodded but was a little annoyed at Peeta stating the obvious. The children were getting the short end of the stick if they ended up with mentors who had never actually been in the arena.

_Oh no_, she thought. _This is really happening_.

Haymitch put his head on the table and seemed to sigh in defeat. The atmosphere in the room was heavy. What do they do now? Obviously this woman was intent on making them suffer by watching their children participate in her version of the games. But whom do they tell? Was this being broadcasted all over Panem or just those related to the tributes?

Suddenly a knock came at the door. Peeta look at Katniss and Haymitch and, deciding that neither was able or willing to move, he slowly made his way to the front of the house. His prosthetic leg truly pained him more than it had in 15 years. When he opened the door he looked around from side to side, seeing the houses surrounding them but no one in front of him. He then, in a moment of intuit, looked down. There was a package laying on the floor, with no post-marks whatsoever. It simply read,

"_To: The Mentors of District 12_".

Peeta grabbed the box and started yelling.

"They were here! They were here!"

Katniss sprinted to the door, took one look at the package, and tried to dash off. Peeta was not far behind her, ready to sprint, when a pair of hands, unnaturally strong, grabbed their shirt collars.

"Haymitch, if you don't let go, I swear I'll skin you!" Katniss yelled. Flailing her arms about. Haymitch merely tightened his hold.

"For once, I agree with her," Peeta spat. "Let us go! They have our kids!"

"And my grandkids," Haymitch growled. "But you will be no help to them trying to find a delivery man who I bet, if Clytemnestra, is smart, he won't have any valuable information. You will just start an unnecessary panic!"

Peeta was the first to sop struggling, but Katniss could not help but jerk and let out a frustrated scream. She hated this! Hated being weak, unable to protect her children! They were the people she was supposed give everything for, give up her life for, and now she was being forced to watch them go through what she swore she would never let happen to them.

"We never should have had children," she whispered.

Peeta's eyes brimmed with tears.

* * *

><p>Briar was lead into a room that was much plusher than the cell he had occupied. White, clean walls, white tile floors, plush chairs, a couch, and a long steel dining table. It was framed by a decorative, steel kitchen, a grand crystal chandelier, a flat screen TV in the living room, and tons of artificial light. There were no windows. It made Briar sick.<p>

Briar whipped around when he heard the door open again but there he saw Crescent. Her hair was a tangled mess around her shoulders, her blue eyes wide with fright, and her olive toned skin ashen in the light. He dashed over to her and pulled her into his arms. She began to sob, trying her best to hold them in but she ended up making the most pitiful choking sound that Briar wished she would just cry. She was trying to be strong, like her mother and father, but she was so frightened, so gentle, and too compassionate.

"I can't do it Briar," she wept. "I can't kill people. I can't kill children!"

"I won't let you, I promise. As long as I'm alive, I won't let you," he said softly.

He was a full foot taller than her, and as he let her bury her nose into the crook of his neck, he hoped he could keep that promise. Her tears were hot on his skin.

"But I can't even defend myself!"

"That's where you're wrong," he said fiercly. Pulling her away from him he looked her dead in the eyes, Seam grey meeting that lovely blue. "You may be the biggest daddy's girl I know but that didn't stop dad from making you carry 100 pound bags of flour around the bakery. It didn't stop mom from teaching you what she could about hunting. It never stopped you from studying the book on plants day and night because you loved to see what you could make so dad's headaches would go away."

Crescent looked up at him, hope shining in her eyes.

"You really think I can make it?"

Briar pulled her back into his embrace.

"I know you will."

_Because I'll die trying_.

The moments stretched into what felt like hours. They stood there, inhaling each others scent that so much resembled their parents own. Crescent sought her mother with that forest scent, so enveloped in pines and lake water. Briar tried to find remnants of his father's warm, musky smell of dough and different mixtures of paint and ink.

The TV crackled and fizzed, snapping them out of their reverie as faces appeared on the screen.

"Mom? Dad?" Briar breathed.

"Grandpa Haymitch!" Crescent squealed. Her excitement died and she frowned, "Oh, you look as drunk as ever."

Haymitch snorted through the screen.

"More so, probably," he commented.

There was a silence before what was happening before them truly sank in. Crescent and Briar rushed to the screen, trying to touch what was not there. Who was not there. There hands only touched the television screen yet they vainly held onto the hope that they would eventually feel skin.

"Daddy! Mommy!" Crescent cried as if she was five years old again.

"Oh my little girl," Peeta choked, his throat closing up with emotion.

Katniss reached a hand out to the screen and Briar and Crescent reached out their hands to meet hers.

"No crying now," she said sternly. "Shhhhhhh, Crescent. You have to listen to us now. We only have an hour."

"An hour for what?" Briar asked.

"To mentor you," Haymitch commented, taking a long draft from his liquor bottle.

Briar wrinkled his nose and Crescent looked sick.

"Could you at least do us the favor of being sober, you old drunk?"

"Sorry brat, have to be inebriated for this sort of thing."

Peeta waved Haymitch off and began to talk rapidly.

"The note we got with this new machine… what was it called? A laptop? Anyways, this is how we can communicate with you until the games, during designated hours. After that we use it to communicate with your sponsors,"

"Sponsors?" Crescent asked. "How has this Snow woman acquired sponsors?"

"How has she pulled this whole thing off?" Katniss said. "She must have gotten the money somewhere, and I bet she found it in old, Capitol citizens who miss the old government. I wouldn't put it past the Career districts either?"

"District's one and two?" Briar asked.

"And four," Peeta said. "Never underestimate four."

"Its possible she hired foreign, bored, rich investors looking for some sick entertainment," Haymitch commented dryly. "Panem has just recently re-discovered the outside world in the last twelve years. There are some sick people in this world, even if they don't overtly rule the nation like President Snow did."

"Anyways," Peeta said, steering the conversation back to the matter at hand. "You have to make them like you, remember you."

"So this is a popularity contest?" Briar asked, disgusted.

Peeta looked at his son solemnly.

"Yes."

"We're doomed," Crescent muttered. "Neither of us are very sociable."

Briar looked at his sister as if she had grown a second head.

"I may not be very social, but you are. Everyone flocks to you because you're so… so…" Briar tried to look for a word.

"Pure," Katniss said flatly. "That may help her attract some sponsors, but she's going to have to turn up the charm."

"I'm not so worried about her getting sponsors as I am about the boy," Haymitch said. "He's about as good an actor as you ever were, sweetheart."

Katniss simply glared at Haymitch. Peeta rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"You'll be fine, son," he said. "If you be yourself, tell the truth without telling the whole truth, you'll be okay."

"Not against Finnick's son," Haymitch bit out. "That boy is just as blessed with looks, not too mention his skill with a trident. Plus he did get wits from his mother, before she went cuckoo."

Crescent flushed, but no one but Briar seemed to notice. Briar snorted. They were right. Despite the fact they were friends with Kai, he was their opponent for now. He was as gorgeous as his father had supposedly been with his tan skin and bronze colored hair. The only thing that was different was that he possessed his mother's sea green eyes, which possessed an uncharacteristic sense of humility that Finnick's had never had.

To Briar, it just made him more dangerous.

They all continued to talk in this way. About the possible tributes skills, considering the Academy's for the Careers were demolished years ago. The possible arenas, anything they could fit into the span of an hour that flew by too quickly.

As the screen began to fizzle again, Katniss and Peeta tried to devour their kid's faces before they disappeared.

"We love you so much," Peeta said softly, as gently as he could without breaking.

Katniss's throat seemed to swell up, an unbearable pressure weighing on her chest. So she simply nodded. Haymitch just looked at them, with a great sense of pain in his eyes as he said,

"Don't get killed."

The screen went black.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** _PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE WORK THIS TIME! I'm sorry for the trouble, guys. _

_Oh, and please review. I know there's a lot of you by all the favorites. PLEASE._


	4. Windows to the Soul

Briar could not stop staring at the impossible creature that was currently lathering some kind of lotion all over his naked body. It was human but that was just it, it was somehow not human at the same time. The… the male creature, he presumed, in front of him had a lengthy, lean and wiry build. There was a chest, regular arms and human legs, but the face was truly feline, pointed with almond shaped eyes, whiskers, and furry black ears at the top of his head. If Briar craned his neck far enough to the left a bushy black tailed would be curled out the creature's back end.

_Muttations_… Briar thought. _Except its not two animals, it's a human and an animal combined._

At that moments a slender hand came up to start combing through his hair, and the female had a rounder face, her eyelashes coated in what looked like fake butterflies, white make-up painted her face with big-set, round blue eyes. A pair of rounded ears sat on the top of her head. She was not a cat like the male, but part… Briar wracked his brain as the comb slid through his short blonde hair. _A monkey? _He wondered. He thought one of his textbooks in a re-discovered science subject called Biology had a picture of one in class back home.

The new Panem was discovering things all the time these days. Books locked away by the Capitol's highest officials for years. Books that had survived the war and had been printed when Panem had been a different country altogether.

Briar snapped out of his train of thought when the mutations that had been preening him left, leaving him alone, completely bare and vulnerable on the cold metal table. _Was Crescent going through this right now? _He clenched his fists at the thought.

A few minutes straggled by until the door opened again, with a tall, slightly muscular muttation came through. Briar cocked his head trying to get a better look at him through the cold, hard lighting of the room. It had dark skin and hair (fur?) with a lean build. It definitely had the skinny rounded tail of a mountain lion and the rounded, soft ears to match. But its eyes… no, his eyes, were a deep, dark color that betrayed a hidden emotion. Briar could sense that this mutation was somehow more human than the others. His pointed face resembled the mountain lion but bright gold tattoos surrounded his expressive eyes.

"I bet you despise us," the male said, his voice smooth and almost comforting over Briar's ears.

"Not so much you," Briar replied, his voice hoarse from not speaking the several hours he had been prepped. "Your just another tool like me. I'm smart enough to see that,"

"We work for the woman who captured you,"

"Voluntarily?"

There was a pause. The male muttation quirked his narrow mouth as if he wanted to smile.

"No."

"I didn't think so."

There was another pause between them. The dark mutation sauntered up to Briar and fixed his blonde hair a bit before whispering,

"You look a lot like Peeta, but I can tell your all your mother,"

Briar jerked back his head and pierced the man with an icy gray glare that fit the son of a woman from the Seam.

"How would you know?"

"Because," the man said, completely unpeturbed by Briar's reaction. "I was her stylist. Well, Cinna was. I am Cinna, yet I'm not Cinna."

Briar just stared at him, his mouth agape.

"It's complicated."

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><p>Kai's muttation stylist bumbled around him in order to put the last minute touches on his outfit for the parade. The muttation man was part seagull and kept poking him with his enormous beak. Every time it did it muttered a small shriek but Kai could not tell if it was because it was in pain or if it was trying to apologize.<p>

Either way, Kai had wanted to punch it and make a run for it. Try and get as for away as possible once he had found out what he was in for. He would much rather die via any guards bullets than fight to the death with children in the arena. Yet his plan had changed when he heard Crescent's voice.

Even now he could not tell what had come over him, this swelling feeling that made his chest feel tight when he had heard her terrified voice. He was scared for her because when she had wept through the other side of the wall all he could think about was his mother losing her mind when she had witnessed her district partner beheaded. Who would have known years later his father would meet the same fate?

He would go in the arena. He did not want to murder innocent children but if they fought him and if it came down to only saving one person from the fate his mother had met with…

He would save Crescent no matter the cost.

Whether saving her would involve keeping her alive or giving her a merciful end he was not sure of yet.

* * *

><p>"They took Cinna's body… and made you?"<p>

"Yes,"

"Why?"

"To make it more painful for you and your family, I guess… Lift your arms…"

Briar obeyed, letting Cinna pull the watery cloth over his head. It fell across him like a wave, cool to the touch, almost like real water.

"Why didn't they give you to my sister? She looks exactly like mom,"

"I think they thought she would be your mother's carbon copy, they'd be afraid I'd remember everything and help her,"

"But you do remember everything,"

"They underestimated some of us. They let us keep the stylists brains and some have stronger wills than others. They wanted us to look like them, act like them, but that's all,"

"Aren't you afraid there are cameras around?"

"Oh there are, but not in this room. Snow has a lot of sponsors but not nearly enough as when her grandfather was in power."

Cinna finished adjusting Briar's outfit then stepped back and examined it.

"Your father and you could pull almost anything off."

Briar examined him in the mirror at the end of the room. He looked like the hunter he was yet at the same time too… innocent. His shirt was a stark white tucked into equally bright pants. The only hint of darkness he wore was his belt, boots, and vest. Cinna had given him a golden bow and a golden quiver for white and gold arrows.

"I thought we were supposed to represent our district?"

"You're no longer those districts. Besides, Snow wants you to represent yourselves, and the victims you come from. All the more painful for your parents,"

"Why the hell am I all in white? I look, like…"

"Your father."

It was true. Briar grimaced. He loved his father but this was not the look Briar was accustomed to. As a hunter he needed earthy colors, not this fairytale garb. The only way he could kill an animal while wearing this is if a doe walked up to him thinking he was some kind of benevolent god.

He really was like his mother. Rough around the edges and no animal liked her unless they were forced into her company for a very long time.

"Why?"

"You like him. Your sister is the spitting image of Katniss. What do you think the crowd is going to think?"

Briar thought about this for a moment.

"That we're exactly like them."

Cinna smiled, his ears twitching.

"As long as they don't look too deeply into your eyes, you'll both have an advantage."

It was at that moment that the door opened and Crescent walked in, followed by another dark, female mutation with the fluffy tails and pointed ears and face of a fox. Crescent wore a dress that faintly resembled that of an apron. It was entirely black with one strap coming around her neck and the other around her waist. Her olive toned back was completely bare. Her eyelids were stylishly smeared with white powder, Briar thought faintly to resemble flour. Her hair was made up in a complicated, twisting set of coils that wound in a bun at the back of her head.

She was representing her true self while also portraying what people thought she would be. The baker's daughter who was just as awkward, beautiful, and fierce as their mother. As long as no one gazed too long into her pure blue eyes they would be safe for now.

"Ready?" she asked, sounding unsure of herself.

Briar walked over to stand in front of his sister, leaned down and kissed her lightly on her forehead.

"No. But I'll do my best to pretend."

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><p><strong>AN:** _Please read and review. :) I'll try and answer some review questions next time. _


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